The present invention relates to a color image forming apparatus and method for forming a color image.
As an example of a prior art apparatus and method, there is a conventional color copying machine of the thermal transfer type which makes color copies by using thermal transfer ink ribbons with a plurality of colors. In such a conventional apparatus, a document is scanned by an optical scanner and the image signal of the document is separated into color component signals corresponding to the colors of the thermal transfer ink ribbons. After all of these color component signals are stored in the memory, they are read out for every color and the image of each color is overlappingly, thermally transferred onto the copy paper, so that a full color copy is formed. Therefore, a memory with a large capacity is required, causing an increase in cost. The miniaturization of such a machine is impossible due to the space the memory occupies, since all of the color component signals are stored in the memory and, thereafter are read out. There is also a drawback in that copying by this method takes a long time.